Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, and activists from the Postal Workers Union, make appeals to Congress to save the U.S. Postal Service, Monday, June 25, 2012, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

(Newser)
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Postal workers, activists, and even Dennis Kucinich took to Capitol Hill today to announce a four-day hunger strike on behalf of the beleaguered US Postal Service. Kucinich himself won't be joining the strike, which will include 10 postal workers, union activists, and supporters, but he was there for moral support, Politico reports. "Make no mistake about it, this is an effort to try to privatize even more postal services," he said. He's the only lawmaker who has voiced support for the cause.

The strikers are allied with the group Communities and Postal Workers United, the Washington Post reports. They intend to demonstrate outside congressional offices over the four days in yellow T-shirts with the phrase, "Congress is starving the postal service," and cap things off with a rally outside USPS headquarters. The strikers say the law requiring the Post Office to pre-fund retiree health benefits for the next 75 years is killing the service, and demand that Congress fix it.

The Postal Service is a dying business, just like the old buggy whip business modern technology has pretty much replaced it, and now it is going through the death throes. If you really think about it, do you use the Post Office today as much as you did 10 - 15 years ago? We now have email, and various social media, and tablets and cell phones that go with us anywhere, we are virtually constantly in touch with anyone that we would ever want to send a letter to (you can even send e-cards). Much of the business that supported the Postal Service is gone. At the least they need to reduce offices, people, and/or days of service, if they want to stay in business. Sure politics may have had some impact in their struggle, but predominantly it is us and technology that has left them behind.